Sanctuary (26 page)

That afternoon before practice I sat in the sunshine, tying my cleats, examining my inner maelstrom of emotions. I’d never had much to lose before. Now I had a taste of how good life could be. And I was afraid. Afraid for Katie. Afraid for her future. Our future. Afraid of the Chemist.

I dialed PuckDaddy.

“I want to speak with Carla.”

“What? Who?”

“Come on, Puck. Carla.”

“The Infected girl inside Compton? One of the Chemist’s henchmen? Errr, hench…women?”

“Yeah, that’s her. Tell her we need to talk.”

“And how the
hay-yell
do you expect Puck to do that?”

“I thought you were the baddest hacker on the planet.”

“Better watch yo’mouth, dummy.”

I said, “If you are, get me her number. Or talk to her yourself.”

He remained silent, except for a sigh. Practice was about to start.

I asked, “Well?”

“Fine,” he grunted. “But I’m not your secretary.”

“You already
have
her number. Don’t you.”

“No! Kinda. Not really. I have a handful of educated guesses I’m monitoring. She’s quiet, doesn’t communicate much with anyone. I’ve narrowed her specific phone down to four or five devices, and now I’m waiting on one of the numbers to give away a clue.”

“We’re out of time. Send a text to your best guess.”

“And say what? We better encode your message in case Puck guesses wrong, which, unbelievably, could happen.”

“Okay,” I thought out loud. “Okay. How about this. ‘You told me in that hallway we should be allies. I want to talk.’”

He slurped some kind of drink and said, “You sure? That’s pretty…vague.”

“Yeah. Try it. I’m tired of the Chemist taking parts of our world. Let’s invade
his
.”

>> Tank and I are meeting as soon as his parents let us, my love. I will break up with him then. Please don’t fall for any other girls until then!! =)

I smiled at the phone until my jaw ached.

There are no other girls.

Ooooooh. That was a good line. I was going to be a dynamite boyfriend.

I reluctantly pulled out my science homework and progressed to the third problem before my phone buzzed.

>> ur old pal the Chemist emailed u back im forwarding it 2 u. ur correspondence w/ him really trips PuckDaddy out this 1 is a doozy

From: napoleon
Date: Oct 11. 21:15
Subject: To Joseph, King of Spain

Good question, son. And it comes at a good time; I’m particularly lucid at this moment. (Yes. The virus causes bouts of temporary insanity, even in me)

So you were saved from the aneurysms by a girl, and you want to know How. She must truly love you, to withstand the emotional swings and irritability and insanity caused by the virus during late adolescence.

To answer your question. Are you familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? The levels of needs that humans must have met to survive and function properly? The third and fourth levels are Love and Esteem. These are vital, especially to a blooming Infected. Love, in particular, is hurricane in strength. Easily the strongest force in the universe.

One of the de-humanizing aspects of the virus is that it transforms you into a genuine malcontent. A truly awful and dangerous person, especially during periods of extreme stress. While the virus is attacking your brain, you need love and support more than ever. Unfortunately this is precisely the stage when most people withdraw it, because your behavior has become so appalling.

In other words, most Infected die at age 18 because they need Love and Esteem desperately, and don’t receive any. Not even from parents, who suddenly have an adult-aged monster on their hands.

This girl of yours shielded your brain from the onslaught by satiating your basic needs for Love and Esteem, especially through physical touch. She poured water on the fire raging inside of you, and gave your brain a chance to heal itself. She sounds quite special.

And I will kill her in front of you if I have to. Slowly. To make you see reason. To coerce you to join me. I don’t want to. But I’m already planning on it.

See you soon.

Martin

My skin crawled. He was threatening Katie. I wanted to vomit, reading his final paragraph. Perhaps this communication had been a bad idea.

But his explanation made sense. It also clarified why I felt a little better at that Catholic church, a place I also experienced love.

Puck called me. “That’s an intense email, right?”

I said, “Yes. Extremely. I’m a little queasy.”

“We won’t let him get her.”

“He’s going to, Puck. He’s too strong and too intelligent. He’ll get her eventually. We have to eliminate him.”

“Let’s get started. Carla wants to meet you tomorrow.”

Carla requested a rendezvous on top of the Wells Fargo Tower, one of the tallest in the city, over seven hundred feet.

“Wells Fargo,” I quietly repeated for the tenth time. Samantha sat beside me at lunch. Katie was across the table and currently playing footsie with me. “Why the Wells Fargo tower?”

“Who cares? It’s probably familiar to her, and she’s being cautious,” Samantha said under her breath. “Besides, that tower is ideal. I’ll post up on the BP Plaza and monitor the encounter. If she twitches, I’ll eliminate her. If it’s a trap, I’ll provide support.”

“It’s not a trap. Puck is monitoring her phone. Well, he monitors everything really. There’s no indication she’s the bait in some kind of snare.”

Samantha glared out of the far cafeteria window, in the direction of downtown. She simmered a minute and said, “I’m going now.” She stood up.

“Now?? The meeting isn’t for…” I checked my watch. “…ten hours!”

She grumbled, “I should have been there since yesterday,” and stormed out of the cafeteria.

Katie asked me, “Where’s she going? What meeting?”

“Oh. You know. Football stuff.”

“At ten o’clock tonight? That’s pretty late.”

“Weird tradition,” I shrugged. I didn’t like lying to her. That was going to end. Soon.

Croc called, “Too right, mate! Weird football tradition.” His arm was around Katie, and she didn’t seem to mind. I debated pulling his arm off and hitting him with it.

Croc was on the ground, circling the Wells Fargo Plaza in his truck. Gear was in the air, perched behind her sniper rifle on an adjacent tower. PuckDaddy was in the cameras, monitoring everything he could get his hands on.

The Outlaw stood on top of the US Bank Tower, peering across the chasm of sky towards the rendezvous below. Carla wanted to meet on top of a skyscraper. Well, the Outlaw would drop in from above.

“Quiet as a prairie down here,” Croc reported in my ear.

I said, “She’s late.”

“No,” Samantha said. “She’s already there.” All the voices were soft in my ear, hushed in wary anticipation.

“Negative,” PuckDaddy retorted. “Puck would have a visual. Got active cameras.”

Samantha replied, “You do not yet fully appreciate her. Nor does the Outlaw. She’s an Infected. She’s there. Trust me. I can feel her.”

“I’m going.”

“Careful. I hate that stupid wing-suit.”

I connected my gloves to the suit’s wings, and then locked the webbing between my legs. I was ready to fly.

If I didn’t pass out first. This tower was high. So…so high. I felt light-headed at the thought of leaping off. This high up, there was no traffic noise and I could see most of the planet.

Puck whispered, “I can hear your pulse through your microphone.”

“Shut up, Puck! I’m nervous!”

“Then don’t do it, Outlaw,” Samantha said. “I’ll be forced to hide from Carter in Antarctica if you die. I hate hate hate this.”

I jumped. The swirling vicissitudes caught the fabric and hauled me violently to the north. The earth turned into an unrecognizable smear of lights as I plummeted.

“…oh my god, I hate this, Chase…”

“I lost him. Puck is scared.”

I really needed to remember goggles next time. I banked hard to the left. The wind was a thousand waves, all shoving me in disparate directions. I gathered speed breathtakingly fast. Through the tears I saw my landing spot. …I think.

“Chase….you’re too close, Chase…” I heard above the sky’s roar. I pulled back my arms and mashed the release. The wings disappeared into my pants, and I threw open the parachute. The world returned to order with a brutal jerk and rose up like a screaming elevator. I landed on the Wells Fargo Tower’s rooftop tarmac and retrieved the snapping parachute.

Touchdown.

“Damn Outlaw,” Carla grumbled, materializing from the penthouse shadows. “Startled me. And that ain’t easy.”

Puck hollered, “Holy shoot! How’d she get there?”

Samantha snarled, “Told you! She’s Infected, so she’s a witch. I hate this!”

“The sheila’s already there? What a bottler! I bet Samy-girl is ready to stone the crows!”

I’d turn my stupid earpiece off soon if they didn’t shut up.

Carla waved a gloved hand at the sky and told me, “I know that sniper bitch of yours is around. Tell her to ease off the trigger. I came alone.”

Samantha, in my ear, said, “No.”

I told her, in a low growl, “I know you took a risk, coming here. Thank you.”

“Damn right I did.”

Carla was dressed in similar fashion to Samantha: tight-fitted utility pants and a shooting vest. Her hair was pulled back in corn-rows, and like always she wore sunglasses. Her face could have been carved out of granite.

“Why now, Outlaw? It’s been months since I asked for help.”

“I’m taking him more seriously.”

“You’re a fool if you weren’t already.”

“And I’m getting desperate.”

She scoffed. “I been desperate for months. Welcome to reality. What solution you got?”

“We want to take him out.”

“Doubt you can.” She crossed her arms and tsk’ed her lips. “But I’m riding with whoever is going my way. We going one direction, we in business.”

Puck whispered in my ear, “All is quiet. Puck sees nothing. She came alone.”

I asked her, “What direction are you going?”

“Out. I want the hell out of here. Too many Chosen. Freaks me out. I want peace.”

“Then just leave.”

“The Father would find and kill me. And my family. I seen him do it.”

“He’s really like that?”

“No. Not really. But he will. He’s not a violent dude, ‘sept when he has to be. He vowed he’d release me, after I keep my end of the bargain.”

“Bargain?”

“He took me in, gave me a home, took away the headaches, you know? In return, I gotta work for him.”

“You’re his servant.”

“Slave, more like it.”

“So you want to kill him too.”

She scowled and stuck a finger in my direction. “Don’t want to kill nobody. I’m good at it. Don’t mean I like it. I want peace. I want him to let me go, one way or the other.”

“I don’t see a lot of options here, Carla.” My voice was a deep growl, in case she was recording. “He wants to destroy the world, as far as I can tell. We have to stop him. I don’t know how, other than elimination.”

“Ways to eliminate, other than death. And he don’t want destruction. At least, not total. He wants chaos. He wants to topple governments, tear down systems, reboot societies. He’s proud, right? He thinks we should be in charge. Or at least, be honored. Not hiding. You know? I heard him tell you once that his ass spent years in prison. Makes a lot of sense to me. He hates authorities, hates anyone more powerful than him, like the government.”

“I remember that. He and Carter were in the same prison.”

“Carter,” she sniffed. “Don’t trust that old man. He's no better than the Father, you ask me.”

“I agree. But at least he isn’t trying to tear down governments.”

“You sure ‘bout that, Outlaw? What I hear, he does the same thing with different tools. And both old men are trying to control you.”

I nodded, temporarily at a loss for words. This frank conversation with the enemy was a lot to absorb. Especially an enemy that might believe in a lot of the same things I did.

“The Father, he’s obsessed with you.”

“I’ve noticed,” I chuckled without humor.

“He educated us. About you. That your body contains something within it, you know, something like a siren call. Draws us to you. He warned us to be careful. But the Father feels it most of all, even when you ain’t around. Drives him crazy. Can’t let you go. Needs to either work with you or destroy you.”

“Can you feel the siren call right now?” I asked. “I don’t totally understand why the virus is reacting this way. Or how.”

“Yeah. Yeah I feel it. Weird as hell. I’m usually freaked out by Chosen. Sept the Father. But not you. You don’t repulse me. Just the opposite.” She took off her glasses and looked me up and down, frowning. She even sniffed the air, and then shook her head. “Dunno, Outlaw. Dunno how to explain it. You’re…attractive. To my senses.”

Samantha grunted in my ear piece. “Yes. That’s it. Exactly how I feel too. I like this chick.”

“What about Walter? How does he fit into this picture?”

“Walter.” She rubbed her eyes and put her glasses back on. “You best stay away from Walter.”

“He doesn’t feel the siren call?”

“Don’t know. Don’t matter. Walter kills. Walter hurts. He’s a cold, blood-thirsty mercenary. He likes to cause pain.”

“Great.” I rolled my eyes. “He’ll be fun to deal with. Sounds like a perfect side-kick to the Chemist.”

“You’re ain’t listening, Outlaw.
Listen
. Walter and the Father do not get along. Walter is evil. The Father is only impulse and pride. Walter wants to hurt. The Father only does what he has to. Want to kill someone? Kill Walter. Because the Father can reason. He can think. Not Walter. Walter will burn this world down. He hates.”

“What about Blue Eyes?”

“The hell is Blue Eyes?”

“That girl, in the hospital. Really pretty. Has blue eyes. She got into my head.”